Audio / Visual Sources
Non-text sources can add dimension and nuance to your research.
Follow the links on this page to find films, videos, newsreels, radio broadcasts, speeches, interviews, music, and other a/v materials in subscription databases and on the open web.
Finding A/V Materials
Catalogs & Databases
- Archive Grid
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Searchable database containing over 7 million records describing archival collections, including photograph collections, in 1,400 libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies around the world.
- SONIC - Sound Online Inventory and Catalog (Library of Congress)Inventory and catalog of a large selection of recordings (music and spoken word, including radio) from the Recorded Sound Section of the Library of Congress.
- Sound Collections DatabaseThe first release of a database supported by the Radio Preservation Task Force, National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress (RPTF) and Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC). Browse or search nearly 3000 records describing recorded sound collections in repositories around the country. Genres include radio programs, all varieties of music, radio news, oral histories, interviews, drama, educational programs, and more.
- WorldCat Discovery
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WorldCat Discovery is a catalog and discovery system containing millions of records for print and electronic holdings in thousands of libraries around the world.
Research Guides
- Film Studies Research GuideThe GC Library's guide for Film Studies research.
- Library of Congress - Recorded Sound Collections: Guides & Reference AidsFinding aids and reference tools for the Recorded Sound collections at the Library of Congress.
- Music Research GuideThe GC Library's research guide for Music.
- NYPL Music & Recorded Sound Research GuidesResearch guides from the NYPL on assorted topics including jazz, the music industry, conducting music research, and more.
Notable A/V Collections
The following are among the largest collections of audio and visual materials and are excellent starting places for research.
- DPLA: Digital Public Library of AmericaContains over 49 million images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the U.S. Browse by topic or contributing institution, explore primary source sets and online exhibitions or search the collection.
- Internet Archive
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The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form with a mission to provide universal access to all knowledge. The archive contains tens of millions of books and texts, audio recordings, videos, images, and software programs, and 625 billion web pages.
- Recorded Sound Research Center - Library of CongressListen to music, interviews, field recordings, and more from the Library's historic sound recording collections. Also see the LC's Guides & Reference Aids for their Recorded Sound Collections.
- Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound - NYPL"Holdings cover virtually every aspect of recorded sound—from Mozart to Maria Callas to Motown, from symphonic works to presidential speeches, from radio dramas to television specials."
- UNESCO Sound Recordings"The historical sound recordings collection includes radio reports, specially-produced programmes, interviews and other recordings from the late 1940s to 1980s."
- Research LibrariesMany large research libraries hold collections of audio visual materials. Check the websites of libraries that collect in your subject area to investigate holdings.
Moving Images: Film, Video, and TV Resources
Following are selected sources for exploring the vast trove of moving image resources available online on open access sites and in library subscription databases. See our Film Studies research guide for additional resources.
- adViews: A Digital Archive of Vintage Television CommercialsA digital collection from Duke University Libraries consisting of thousands of television commercials created or collected by the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) advertising agency, dated 1950s-1980s.
- American Archive of Public BroadcastingApprox. 40,000 hours of digitized historic public broadcasting radio and television content, some of which is available online. Search all content online and onsite at WGBH in Boston and the Library of Congress. Also search records documenting 2.5 million holdings at public broadcasting organizations, most of which have not been digitized.
- American History in Video
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Over 70,000 titles of streaming video content, more than half of which is contemporary video from the 1890s to the 1980s. Includes documentaries, interviews, feature films, performances, demonstrations, news programs and newsreels that span a wide range of subjects, including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. - Ethnographic Video Online
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This online resource for the visual study of human culture and behavior contains more than 2,000 hours of classic and contemporary ethnographies, documentaries and shorts from every continent, covering hundreds of cultural groups and practices around the world. Includes video from leading producers in the discipline, previously unpublished footage from working anthropologists and ethnographers in the field, and select feature films. Wherever possible, videos include accompanying field notes, liner notes, filmmaker biographies, related articles, study guides, and other full-text materials. - Filmakers Library Online
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Over 1,500 documentaries about race and gender studies, human rights, globalization and global studies, multiculturalism, international relations, criminal justice, the environment, bioethics, health, political science and current events, psychology, arts, literature, and more.
- International Federation of Film Archives - Member ListThe FIAF is "dedicated to the preservation of and access to the world's film heritage since 1938." Use the member list to identify film archives around the world that belong to FIAF and link to their websites to learn about collections.
- Internet Archive
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The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form with a mission to provide universal access to all knowledge. The archive contains tens of millions of books and texts, audio recordings, videos, images, and software programs, and 625 billion web pages.
- Media History Digital LibraryA free online resource featuring millions of pages of books and magazines from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound.
- Moving Image & Recorded Sound Division - Schomburg Center, NYPLCollections include spoken arts recordings, motion picture film (released prints and outtakes), video recordings, and music documenting the experiences of peoples of African descent.
- Moving Image Archive - Internet ArchiveContains digital movies ranging from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. It also includes stock footage, television archives, the Prelinger Archives, silent films, short format films, U.S. government films, and more. Much of the content is available for free download.
- Moving Image Archive Collections & Exhibits - Indiana UniversityThe archive "contains one of the largest Educational 16mm collections still in existence today. ... [and includes] "approximately 48,000 16mm educational and documentary films dating from 1911 to the 1980s."
- Moving Image Research Center - Library of CongressThe division holds vast collections of moving images and related materials. Use the Research Center's website to explore holdings, consult collection guides and finding aids, and link to digital collections and online resources. Also see a list of collections that contain films and videos.
- New World Cinema: Independent Features and Shorts, 1990-Present
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New World Cinema: Independent Features and Shorts, 1990–Present includes over 160 full-length feature films from leading independent distributors such as Kino Lorber, First Run Features, Film Movement, and Global Lens, as well as award-winning shorts. - Silent Film Online
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A collection of more than 1,200 silent feature films, documentaries, serials, and shorts from the 1890s to the 1930s. Curated with ASP’s Video Advisory Board, the films represent the basis of modern cinematic technique and film theory.
- Vanderbilt Television News ArchiveA searchable collection of the individual network evening news broadcasts from ABC, NBC, CBS from 1968-present, CNN from 1995-present, and Fox from 2004-present. Content in the collection is available through a fee-based loan service.
- World History in Video
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More than 1,750 documentaries exploring human history from the earliest civilizations to the late twentieth century.
Music
Listen to recordings from some of the major collections of recorded music from the links below. See our Music research guide for additional resources.
- Association for Cultural EquityACE holds the Alan Lomax Archive, a collection of recorded music, dance, and the spoken word. Thousands of recordings, photos and videos are available through their website.
- Audio Archive - Internet ArchiveContains recordings ranging from alternative news programming, to Grateful Dead concerts, to Old Time Radio shows, to book and poetry readings, to original music, many of which are available for free download. Also see the blogs that illuminate the vast a/v collections in the Internet Archive such as 78rpm records, Audio, Music, Movies, Television, Video and more.
- Digital Score & Sheet Music CollectionsResearch guide from Arizona State University listing open access online sources for digital score and digital sheet music collections.
- Great 78 ProjectA community project at the Internet Archive for the preservation, research and discovery of 78rpm records.
- Moving Image & Recorded Sound Division - Schomburg Center, NYPLCollections include spoken arts recordings, motion picture film (released prints and outtakes), video recordings, and music documenting the experiences of peoples of African descent.
- National JukeboxHistorical recordings from the Library of Congress.
News Broadcast Transcripts
Transcripts of news programs can be found in several places, including:
NexisUni – Log in with your GC network credentials and search by keyword in All Fields. Then, scroll down and select news transcripts from the "publication type" filter option. From there, you can either select particular sources or search All News Transcripts to find appearances of your search term among the results.
Factiva – Visit The New York Public Library's Thomas Yoseloff Business Center at the former Mid-Manhattan Library at 40th Street & Fifth Avenue to use this database, which is another excellent source for finding transcripts of TV news broadcasts from a wide range of sources.
National Public Radio – Search NPR broadcasts directly, no login required, on their website: https://www.npr.org/search/
Radio
Explore rich, varied, and deep collections of radio broadcasts for a fresh angle on historical research. From the links here listen to news programming; live music; public radio shows; radio plays; alternative news broadcasts; BBC Radio dramas, documentaries, adapted novels; the hip-hop radio archive; shortwave radio programs; community radio; and more. Also delve into scholarship around radio, read scripts, explore archives, and listen to installments of the Radio Survivor podcast that focus on radio stations, radio archives, and other aspects of the medium.
- Academic OneFile
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Provides full-text articles in all subject areas from over 19,000 scholarly journals and other authoritative sources as well as thousands of podcasts and transcripts from NPR (National Public Radio) and CNN, and videos from BBC Worldwide Learning. Subjects covered include biology, chemistry, criminal justice, economics, environmental science, history, marketing, political science, and psychology.
- American Archive of Public BroadcastingApprox. 40,000 hours of digitized historic public broadcasting radio and television content, some of which is available online. Search all content online and onsite at WGBH in Boston and the Library of Congress. Also search records documenting 2.5 million holdings at public broadcasting organizations, most of which have not been digitized.
- American Radio ArchivesA large radio broadcasting collection consisting of thousands of scripts, recordings, photographs and more.
- Audio Archive - Internet ArchiveContains more than 15 million recordings ranging from alternative news programming, to Grateful Dead concerts, to Old Time Radio shows, to book and poetry readings, to original music, many of which are available for free download. Also see the blogs that illuminate the vast a/v collections in the Internet Archive such as 78rpm records, Audio, Music, Movies, Television, Video and more.
- BBC Radio ShowsOver 3,100 audio recordings from the BBC. Includes radio dramas, documentaries, adapted novels and stage plays, comedy,historical news broadcasts, quiz shows, and more.
- Digital Library of Amateur Radio & CommunicationsThis library of materials and collections in the Internet Archive "combines archived digitized print materials, born-digital content, websites, oral histories, personal collections, and other related records and publications. The goals of DLARC are both to document the history of amateur radio and to provide freely available educational resources for researchers, students, and the general public." Read more about the collection in the Internet Archive's blog.
- Hip-Hop Radio Archive"The Hip-Hop Radio Archive aims to digitize, preserve, share, and contextualize recordings of hip-hop radio from the 1980s and 1990s from commercial, college, community, and pirate stations of all sizes, telling the stories of the shows and the people that made them."
- Historic Radio Community BroadcastsStream six hundred broadcasts from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB) Program Archive "showca[sing] a diverse range of cultural and public affairs programming" from 1965 to 1986. Read more about the audio files and see the finding aid for the archival records of the NFCB.
- Lowell Thomas News BroadcastsThomas, who is credited with establishing modern journalism, was the most popular newsman of his time. He reached an audience of 2.4 million homes every weeknight from 1930 to 1976. All 250,000 pages of the radio news show scripts, which were previously only available on microfiche at Marist College, have been digitized and made are freely available online with the rest of Thomas's papers.
- National Federation of Community Broadcasters - Audio Archive"Six hundred historic community radio broadcasts ... [s]panning the years 1965-1986 ... from stations mainly in the United States and Canada, the broadcasts showcase a diverse range of cultural and public affairs programming." Read more.
- New York Public Radio ArchivesDigitized broadcast recordings from the archives of radio station WNYC in New York featuring arts programming, panel discussions, notable interviews, WWII coverage, and more.
- Pacifica Radio Archives"Chronicling the political, cultural and artistic movements of the second half of the 20th century, Pacifica radio programs include documentaries, performances, discussions, debates, drama, poetry readings, commentaries and radio arts." Recordinga are also available in the Internet Archive.
- BBC Radio ShowsOver 3,100 audio recordings from the BBC. Includes radio dramas, documentaries, adapted novels and stage plays, comedy,historical news broadcasts, quiz shows, and more.
- The Radio Spectrum Archive"A project to preserve and share time-shifted radio spectrum recordings."
- Radio SurvivorAn audio and written news blog about radio. Covers community radio stations, college stations, significant collections with a focus on "radio’s present, past, and uncertain future."
- The Shortwave Radio Audio ArchiveSRAA "is a collection of shortwave radio recordings that you can download or listen to as a podcast. The collection grows every day and includes both historic recordings and current recordings from the shortwave radio spectrum."
- World Radio HistoryA free, non-profit, open access online library of thousands of radio, music, and electronics publications.
Spoken Word
Following are selected open access and subscription resources for exploring spoken word collections in all their variety.
- American Rhetoric"Database of and index to 5000+ full text, audio and video versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events, and a declaration or two."
- Association for Cultural EquityACE holds the Alan Lomax Archive, a collection of recorded music, dance, and the spoken word. Thousands of recordings, photos and videos are available through their website.
- Audio Archive - Internet ArchiveContains a wide variety of recordings, including alternative news programming, Grateful Dead and other concert recordings, Old Time Radio shows, book and poetry readings, original music, many of which are available for free download. Also see the blogs that describe the vast a/v collections in the Internet Archive such as 78rpm records, Audio, Music, Movies, Television, Video and more.
- Black Thought and Culture: African Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
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Over 100,000 pages of monographs, essays, speeches, letters, political leaflets, periodicals, trial transcripts, and interviews by major American Black teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other leaders, covering over 250 years of history. Writers include James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Ralph Bunche, Angela Davis, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Marcus Garvey, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, Huey Newton, Jackie Robinson, Paul Robeson, Bobby Seale, Booker T. Washington, Cornel West, Richard Wright, and many others. Search across the collection or browse by person, subject, title, historical event, content type, place, or publisher. - LibriVox
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LibriVox is a crowd sourced project in which volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain (mostly from Project Gutenberg), and then release the audio files through their website without restrictions. All LibriVox audio is in the public domain, so you may use it for whatever purpose you wish. Search the catalog or browse by Author, Title, Genre/Subject, or Language.
- Moving Image & Recorded Sound Division - Schomburg Center, NYPLCollections include spoken arts recordings, motion picture film (released prints and outtakes), video recordings, and music documenting the experiences of peoples of African descent.
- PennSoundAn ongoing project committed to producing new audio recordings and preserving existing audio archives of poetry, literature, talks, and much more. Freely available to all.
- PodcastREA searchable, researchable archive of podcasting culture. PodcastRE contains links and metadata records to over 150,000 individual audio files from over 1,000 different podcast feeds. Search by show title, episode title, or keyword and display the results by grid or list. Stream audio files and explore over 5000 interactive audio transcripts.
- The Speech Accent ArchiveContains a large set of speech samples allowing users to compare and analyze the accents of native and non-native English speakers. Browse or search by speaker, region, or phonetic inventory.
- Vital Speeches InternationalText of speeches by the most influential leaders from around the world.
Theatre
A few selected library databases for researching theatre online. See our Theatre & Performance research guide for additional resources.
- Digital Theatre Plus
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The New York Public Library offers on-site access to Digital Theatre Plus, which streams current British theatre productions from Shakespeare to contemporary plays, and opera, musical theatre, dance and ballet, symphonic and chamber music, theatre from Russia and South Asia, and film shorts. Includes study guides and other supplementary materials.
- MIT Global Shakespeares"The MIT Global Shakespeares Video & Performance Archive is a collaborative project providing online access to performances of Shakespeare from many parts of the world as well as essays and metadata provided by scholars and educators in the field."
- Theatre in Video
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More than 400 videos of theatrical performances and documentaries. Includes plays by Aeschylus, Albee, Beckett, Chekhov, Fugard, Gogol, Hansberry, Ibsen, Miller, Moliere, O'Neill, Pinter, Pirandello, Shakespeare, Sophocles, Strindberg, Wasserstein, and others. Documentaries feature analyses of plays, performances, and techniques, as well as interviews with playwrights, directors, and actors.